Furnace Room Lullaby
by Gold Dust Woman
Summary: The story of a PTV dealer, her life, her trials, and her eventual downfall. FF, OC [REPOSTED]
1. Chapter 1

I posted this story some time ago, but I wrote myself into a hole with it, so I did a major overhaul. Plus, the original version featured Vincent as a main character, and I came to realize that I can't stand that bastardly little fuck (sorry fangirls!) Anyway, read and review if you like, or beat me profusely about the head and shoulders if you prefer (I wish you wouldn't.)

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. You can't prove I don't not own nothing ((brain explodes from overdose of double negatives)) Okay, I lied. Any characters you don't recognize belong to me. So there.

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_Prologue_

_I'm wrapped in the depths of these deeds that have made me_

_I can't bring a sound from my head though I try  
I can't seem to find my way up from the basement  
A demon holds my place on earth 'till I die_

_Neko Case, Furnace Room Lullaby_

_---_

I meet them in Rosewater Park. Well, I can't really say I ever meet any of them, since our encounters usually last less than a minute. They come up to me as I'm standing there on the observation deck overlooking Toluca Lake. They make pathetic small talk, commenting on the lake, the park, the dark-green Pleasant River University hoodie I always wear. "Are you a student there?" they always ask. I simply answer yes and get on with it. They don't need to know that I'm financing my education by doing this, and working towards a degree in criminal justice at that. I hand them the bag, they hand me the cash. Some of them I'll see again later that day. Some I'll never see again. And still others I'll see some time later, in the obituaries. The headlines let me know when to expect this. _Suspicious deaths continue. "PTV" dealers still at large._

I actually tried it once, the drug. I knew better, I knew I could be next, but I like to take my chances. At first it felt kinda nice, warm and fuzzy, like drinking vodka on an empty stomach. I actually did think about going to get something to drink when it hit me. I stood up off the couch and the next thing I knew I was rushing to the bathroom, collapsing to my knees in front of the toilet and retching violently. I could taste it rising in my throat, but it refused to come up entirely. It tasted the way cat piss smells. I slumped over the toilet, staring at the hole in the bottom, my tears the only thing hitting the water. Suddenly a foul reddish-brown substance started bubbling up through the hole, and I jumped away. It started overflowing, and at the same time tiny rivulets of blood were rising from the baseboards and snaking up the walls, across the floor, into the toilet and the shower, forming a grisly web on everything. I scrambled to my feet as they started crawling up my legs, and dashed into the living room. Here too. The blood appeared to be soaking through the wall as if it were a sponge, seeping into the room. The sponge-wall started pulsing, as if it were alive, and hideous, human faces materialized in it, all laughing and shrieking discordantly. I ran into the bedroom but they were there too, all laughing at me. Finally I curled up in a ball on the floor, screaming until my throat was raw to drown out the maddening din.

That was just last night. Somehow I woke up this morning, and I returned to the park, where I stand now. A nice looking middle-aged guy spies me from a few yards away on the deck. Two minutes later he walks away with a bag, and I walk the opposite direction with four crisp $20 bills in my pocket.

I wonder what he'll see tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

It's nothing unusual for me to come home to a mess, but this evening it was especially bad. I didn't recall strewing clothes all over the room last night, but the possibility of a bomb being detonated in the closet was the only other explanation I could think of. I moved quickly to get them all picked up before Rachel got home. It wasn't as if she was a neat freak herself, but I sure as hell didn't want her to suspect what had happened here.

Just as I was hanging up the last shirt, I heard the deadbolt click. The door flung open and Rachel entered, her white uniform shirt partially unbuttoned and the usual end-of-day look of disgust on her face. I went into the living room to greet her.

"Hello dear. Rough day?"

She replied with an unintelligible grunt and flopped down on the couch. I immediately went to the fridge and pulled out two beers, one of which I opened and handed to her. "You look like you need this."

She stared at it, and then up at me, and eventually smiled. "You'll make somebody a hell of a wife someday, Kara."

I laughed and plopped down next to her, neglecting to open my own beer right away in favor of watching her. Rachel and I have been roommates for the past four years. We met the first day in Criminal Justice 101 and have been inseparable ever since. I don't know what I'd do without her. That's why she can never know what I do. She currently believes I'm doing a paid internship with the Silent Hill police department, although I wasn't exactly lying when I told her I was getting a first-hand view of what we had to look forward to dealing with in law enforcement.

"So how was work today? Or is that a bad question?" I asked.

She scoffed. "I get it now when you say you hate people."

I laughed uncomfortably. Always the consummate conversationalist, she was. At any rate, Rachel had all the social graces that I lacked, so I left the public sector to her. At least the more…legitimate aspects of it. She had just started this new job, working the front desk at the small hotel just down the street from our apartment, a few weeks ago after having worked as a bartender for the past two years. For a short time she did that in addition to working at the local auto parts store while I was out of work. That was how I substantiated what I was doing now. I often made more money in a day than she made in a week, so the universe was balanced out, in some form.

"I don't think one is gonna do it for me tonight," Rachel giggled en route to the refrigerator.

"Then why don't we go out tonight?" I suggested. "It's been a long week, and we deserve it."

She agreed right away, which surprised me. Usually I had to beg and plead with her, which was ironic seeing as how she's the social one. At any rate, after ten minutes of clothes changing and the usual argument about who was going to drink less and therefore be the designated driver, we were in my truck and on our way. Though we were in my vehicle, it was doubtful that I would be driving home. That's just how it always was.

We arrived at the Basement's Basement, our favorite bar in Pleasant River, to find it busier than usual. Graduation was just around the corner, though, so everyone was getting started on their farewell get-togethers. I felt a slight twinge of anxiety at the sight of all those people standing at the entrance, but Rachel's hand on my shoulder gave me strength.

"Do me a favor," she uttered in my ear as we walked downstairs. "Try to be social. Don't cling to me all night like you always do."

"Don't tell me you're sick of me after all these years," I said facetiously.

"No…" She rolled her eyes. "I'm telling you you need to get out more and meet people. They won't bite."

I grumbled under my breath. "Whatever you say."

For the first half-hour, she didn't get her wish. We sat at the bar, sharing a pitcher of beer and watching the drunken sorority girls make asses of themselves at karaoke. After a time, she ran into some friends from her sociology class. We exchanged introductions, and that was the last I heard from them for awhile. They went to play pool and I stayed at the bar, starting on a second pitcher and remaining blissfully isolated. I was amusing myself reading the humorous posters hanging around the mirror behind the bar when in the reflection I noticed someone walk up right behind me.

"This is some fun, huh?"

I turned around to see a girl standing there. She was as tall as I was sitting down, and wore a black tank top that showed off the tribal dragon tattoo on her left arm. Her light-brown hair was pulled back loosely behind her head, and her glassy blue eyes searched my face.

"Yeah," I replied brusquely, turning my attention back to drinking.

"I wasn't being nosy or anything, but I noticed your friend kinda abandoned you."

"Yeah, she does that sometimes."

She seated herself on the stool next to me, propping her chin on her hands. She missed her upturned palms completely on the first try, telling me that she was already over her limit. She was quite thin, so that was probably not a whole lot.

"Do you smoke?" she asked seemingly out of nowhere.

"No."

"Me either. The smoke in here bothers me, so I'm going outside. You wanna come with?"

"Uh, sure." I didn't know this girl from anyone, but I figured if Rachel saw me with her, she wouldn't bitch at me quite as much later for being anti-social. Plus, a weird part of me hoped it would make her jealous. She ducked out on me, after all.

"This way." My new friend gestured as she walked to the back of the bar, and led me through a short corridor in the back that I didn't even know existed. A couple steps up a crumbling stone staircase and we emerged in a tiny fenced in area at the back of the building.

"I like it because no one ever comes back here," she said as if she'd been reading my mind. I nodded my assent and sat on the stone ledge that ran the length of one wall.

"Oh damn, I just realized I never introduced myself." She giggled and sat beside me. "I'm Damian."

"Kara." An awkward silence followed, so I kept running my mouth. "Damian is a really cool name."

"Thanks. I think my parents really wanted a boy." She gazed upward at the sky. "It's a nice night, isn't it?"

"Yeah…" I hadn't noticed when we came in, but it was turning out to be a bit of a chilly night. I wasn't cold because I was wearing my leather jacket, but Damian was bound to be freezing dressed as she was. She shuddered occasionally to evidence this.

"You're probably wondering why I talked to you in there," she said after awhile.

"No, why?" Actually I was, but it was inconsequential in the end.

She glanced sideways at me and giggled, her narrow shoulders hunching up. "Well, I'm actually from Silent Hill. I always see you in the park there but I never had the guts to, you know, come up and talk to you."

"Okay…?"

She giggled again, and her faux cute coyness was starting to get on my nerves. Fortunately she cut to the chase. "So, you got any on ya right now?"

A cold sensation of dread knotted in my stomach. "You want some…?"

She turned suddenly serious, and I saw her blush in the dim light. "I've never done anything like this before. I just wanna try it once, just for shits and giggles."

I frowned. PTV was far from a "shits and giggles" type of drug, but I didn't expect her to know that, and I doubted I could sway her. With some dismay I fished through my pocket and pulled out the smallest bag I had, the size usually reserved for first timers. I offered it to her and she eyed it doubtfully.

"How much?"

I considered. "For you…$20." Well, it was her first time, and drinking usually brought out the latent generosity in me. Without a moment's hesitation she produced two $10 bills, which she thrust in my hand as she snatched the bag. I then watched, completely bemused, as she proceeded to empty the contents of the bag on the wooden rail to the side of the stairs. She stared at it for a moment, and finally went for the gusto and dove in nose-first, _Scarface_-style. She clearly wasn't lying when she said she was a newbie. Either that, or she was just that drunk.

"Fuck…" she proclaimed loudly when she emerged, dragging her arm across her nose several times as she turned to me. "Good shit!"

I smiled tensely and glanced out of the corner of my eye to the stairs. Thankfully the coast was still clear.

"Wow…it has a kick to it," she mused as she paced around the tiny area. "I'm feelin' it now." She sat down beside me, and then got up and walked another lap, and then sat again. This time she turned her whole body to face me.

"I'm glad I met you tonight. And I'm not just talking about this either."

"Yeah?" I said densely.

"Yeah." She moved in close. "You wanna know something?"

"What?"

She leaned even closer to me, apparently intending to whisper something in my ear, but she missed and her mouth brushed against my neck just below my ear.

"My parents may not have gotten a boy, but they got the next best thing."

"Eh?"

She nipped my earlobe and nuzzled my neck lightly, and my face burned when I finally got it. "Oh…oh! You're…"

She backed off and smiled coyly at me. "Does that bother you?"

It must not have bothered me too damn bad, considering the surge of heat I felt when she touched me. I figured I must've uttered something to this effect, because the next thing I know her hands are on my face and her lips pressed to mine. It was very chaste, and she backed away almost immediately to gauge my reaction. I remained where I was, my face just centimeters from hers. What happened next was like something out of a dream. My head dropped to the side as if it were on a string that had suddenly gone slack, and my mouth brushed the corner of hers briefly before I dipped even lower into the curve of her neck, kissing her lightly there. She moaned, her hands tangling in my hair and urging me to continue. I figured that for her, much like me, the neck was one huge erogenous zone. I nipped at her throat and traveled lower, pushing aside the strap of her tank top to allow access to her bare shoulder. I breathed hotly on her skin and trailed my tongue over her collarbone, causing her to collapse against the cold stone wall.

"H-holy shit…I guess it doesn't bother you," she rasped.

I continued what I was doing, though it felt like some higher authority was guiding me. I had known for some time and was able to admit to myself, if not anyone else, that I was attracted to girls, but I had never acted on it to speak of. I had a short-lived affair with a married woman some months ago, but she had very much been the aggressor; for me, it just sort of happened, and I had little say in it. This girl very much wanted me to take control, and I did just that, to the best of my limited experience. I placed a kiss at the notch between her collarbones, letting my hands trail down her sides to rest on her hips. She shuddered against me.

"Kara, please!"

I raised my head to look at her, gazing into eyes that could only be described as smoldering. "Hmm?"

"I want you…but not here. Let's go somewhere else."

I lowered my head and chuckled to myself. "Whatever you say."

The next thing I knew, we were hauling our drunk asses over the wooden slat fence enclosing the area and dashing madly across the parking lot. By some stroke of luck I remembered where I had parked, so we adjourned to my truck. I was suddenly grateful that it had a bench seat.

"Oh this is _hot_," Damian said as she eyed my old GMC. "You're a regular cowgirl, aren't you?"

I laughed awkwardly and unlocked the door, not an easy task with my hands shaking as they were. I let her in, and she climbed up in the cab beside me.

"Now…where were we…?" She practically threw herself against me hard enough to slam my whole body against the driver's side door, but I was distracted from this by her lips pressed ravenously against my mouth. Her anxious hands tugged at my jacket, which I helped her remove though it meant taking my hands off of her for a second. Her clothes soon followed, and she lay back on the seat, not an easy task even as petite as she was. I straddled her awkwardly to enable her to stretch out, and assumed a bizarre yoga-like position to allow both for her to lay comfortably between my legs and also to allow me access to her. By the time we were settled in I had lost track of what I was doing, but she quickly reminded me when she placed a hand on top of my head and urged me lower. I attacked her neck voraciously for a moment before moving on, kissing her chest, across her breasts, down her stomach, and lower. I paused for effect between her legs, pressing my face against the inside of her thigh and inhaling deeply, an action that raised goosebumps on her flesh-and mine, as well, as the scent of her arousal swam in my head.

"Fucking hell, you're too good at this," she growled, and without warning grabbed my head and practically stuffed my face between her legs. I was sure it was obvious I didn't know what I was doing, but I heard no complaints from her. I got into it; it was an amazing ego trip to know that I had done this to her, that I had reduced her to this panting, moaning, sweaty heap, that she wanted _me_, and she liked what I was doing to her. I briefly entertained a thought, that at any moment Rachel could come out and catch us. I pictured the look of shock on her face when she spied me, my ass pressed against the driver's side window and my head buried between the thighs of the girl I'd met less than an hour ago. That I could even think of Rachel, a woman I thought of as the sister I never had, at a time like this was alarming. I blamed it on attention-deficit disorder. I was jolted back into reality when Damian orgasmed, her hips bucking with enough force to snap my neck back. I remained where I was for a minute, gasping for breath, and glanced up at her only to be confronted with a furious scowl.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She kept her icy gaze fixed on me, a look so intense I was sure it could rend me in two.

"Who's Rachel?" she asked, her voice low and dangerous.

"Huh…?" I was too hazy with lust and booze now to even register a coherent thought.

"I heard you say that name just now."

"Now how the hell could I do that with my mouth full?" It sounded funnier in my head. It was decidedly less amusing when her hand landed upside my head with surprising force.

"Just now! You just made _me _come, not this 'Rachel' Who the hell have you been thinking about this whole time?"

I didn't dare say a word, as anything I could say at this point would both make things worse and confuse me even further. I shrugged apologetically and she replied by seizing a fistful of my hair and shoving me away from her with enough force to crack my head against the window behind me.

"Bitch." She hauled on her clothes and half-jumped, half-fell out of the truck, slamming the door as hard as she could and delivering a good hard kick to the front fender before storming away. I sat there utterly flabbergasted, my own clothing still disheveled and her juices still moist on my chin. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but I was never so relieved to see Rachel than I was when she came up and pecked on my window.

"Hey you. Had enough socializing for one night, huh?"

I was somewhat surprised but no less grateful that she was being understanding. I nodded and forced a smile, and she answered with one of her own.

"You look wrecked. Move over, I'll drive."

Not a word was uttered between us on the drive home, and it had me nervous. I told myself that we were both just tired and sleep-deprived, but I was paranoid. The smell of sex in the cab of the truck was nearly overpowering, and though Rachel's sense of smell was weakened by her smoking, there was no way she couldn't be getting a nose-full of it. Knowing her, though, she was probably already privy to my little indiscretion. At any rate, I had something a little more pressing to worry about. I peered at her out of the corner of my eye. She was quite the cutie indeed, I had to admit. I loved how she let her bangs grow just a little too long so they fell carelessly across one eye, and speaking of her eyes, I was a sucker for green ones. But this was Rachel, she _was _my sister, as far as I was concerned, and it just wasn't right for me to have feelings for her that were even remotely sexual. I wasn't even going to over-think it like I tend to do. It was just one of those things that was wrong no matter how you sliced it.

That didn't stop me from dreaming about her all that night, though.


End file.
